Top Ten Ironies of the Week

Maybe I’ll start a new Friday feature here at the Tempest…Top Ten Ironies of the Week. This past week has been chocked full, maybe not ten but why don’t I just start typing and see how far I get:

1.     One of the most enthusiastic responses to the Supreme Court decision to overturn DOMA came from former President Bill Clinton. Who signed DOMA into law in the first place? Bill Clinton.

2.     Paula Deen loses her television show because she used the “N” word in a private legal deposition. Meanwhile Jay-Z and Kanye West get a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance for their song, “Niggas In Paris” which contain this heartfelt lyrical masterpiece, “So I ball so hard muhfuckas wanna find me, first niggas gotta find me.”

3.     Although gay rights advocates have always cast their struggle as a civil rights issue, President Obama, after the DOMA ruling reassured nervous pastors and priests with this, “I won’t be forcing churches to perform gay marriages”. Imagine President Johnson coming out after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and saying, “Now, I’m not going to be forcing the local Waffle House to serve blacks”. No, not quite civil rights.

4.     On the same week as Paula Deen loses her television show and is publically shamed on the Today Show by Matt Lauer, Anthony Weiner, who less than a year ago shared pictures of his manhood to young women on the internet, surged ahead in polls for the Mayor’s race in New York City. Apparently a picture is worth a thousand votes in New York.

5.     How come a couple of years ago when Congressmen were humiliated by loud and sometimes rude questions in town hall style meetings with their constituents by Tea Party types over Obamacare, the Nancy Pelosi’s of the world called them an angry mob, but this week, when an equally loud and disruptive mob interrupted a vote on an abortion bill by the duly elected representatives of the State of Texas, the same Nancy Pelosi declared it “democracy in action”?

Ok, I only came up with 5, but its 7:30 in the morning and I have a physical therapy appointment in an hour. You’ll have to come up with the other 5 on your own.

Litter Rage

Last night I went over to church to see my wife do her yearly Vacation Bible School job. Every year she stands up in front of 400 screaming kids dressed up as some crazy character and teaches them about Jesus by demonstrating some Biblical truth with object lessons pulled from God knows where. This year she is a Queen in a castle and last night she used static electricity to separate pepper from salt. It was all quite amazing, and the kids were duly impressed. She is quite the performer, seems perfectly at ease, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be wearing a red robe and golden crown, holding a scepter in her hand looking for all the world like Grace Kelly in front of a building full of sugared up 8 year olds. Despite the inevitable sound and technical glitches, she remained poised and in control throughout, and if I were one of those 8 year olds, I would have fallen in love.

But what I’ll remember most from the night was something that happened before I even got there. I was sitting at the stoplight of Ridge Road and Parham, right in front of the church when I noticed a young man walking south down Parham road. His back was to me so I never saw his face. He had the dress and gait of a teenager and was wearing a back pack. His left hand held a cell phone to his ear while his right hand held one of those giant energy drinks in the huge 20 oz. cans. He tilted the can skyward, polished off the last few drops and then suddenly, as casually as one might shoo away a fly, dropped the can at his feet. The can bounced off the pavement and bounded up into the overgrown grass at the side of the road. He continued on his way, unaware of anything but his cell phone conversation. Luckily for this young man, there were cars coming, because I had to fight off an angry impulse to swerve out of my lane, drive down Parham, cut in front of him, slam on the brakes, get out of my car and beat the tar out of him, then make him go pick up the can and eat it in front of me.

Yes, yes, I know, not a very Christian impulse, but it was just a flash of an idea that I had the good sense not to give in to. With age has come impulse control, I suppose. But seriously, it’s been a while since I’ve witnessed a litterer in action. You see the junk on the sides of the road but seldom see the self-absorbed knuckleheads who put it there, and I wasn’t ready for it. I haven’t been that instantly enraged since that time that an episode of 24 was preempted for that Presidential debate. I mean, the kid was wearing a back pack for heaven’s sake. Would it have killed him to put the can in there until he made it home?

I can put up with a lot, horrible music, terrible television, the designated hitter, but let me witness someone litter, and I contemplate assault. It’s the little outrages, I guess.

Bread and Circuses

Over the past month, the American people have been informed that the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting certain groups of their fellow citizens for special harassment because of their political views. Our Justice Department has been seizing phone records of reporters deemed hostile to the government's version of the truth. In addition, a low level contract employee at the National Security Agency named Edward Snowden leaked information to a British newspaper which revealed that the American people have been systematically spied upon in ways previously unimaginable,  ironically, all of this happening under an administration that promised to be the most transparent in history. So far, the reaction of the American people has been a collective yawn.

It has long been a fear of mine that my countrymen would one day, like the ancient Romans be satisfied with “bread and circuses” while everything fell apart around us. That day apparently has come. With our 500 cable channels, thumbs frantically tapping out minutia on ubiquitous cell phones, we seem blissfully unaware. We Americans take it for granted that our politicians are corrupted, so on almost every level we have tuned them out. As long as we have our Duck Dynasty, as long as the cable isn’t out, as long as we can score us some free health care, everything is fine. So, we hear something somewhere about the government seizing our phone records and we flip over to watch TMZ instead. A few cranky Libertarians get all freaked out, an assortment of hypocritical Republicans who couldn’t have cared less about this sort of thing when Bush was in the White House, and even a couple of Democrats warn that the government is getting too powerful, too entangled in what used to be considered our privacy, and all we can think to ask is, “Are Kim and Kanye going to get married?”

So, the various investigations in Washington will exhaust themselves and disappear with nothing having changed, and by inertia the government will grow stronger, more unstoppable by law, less and less answerable to its citizens. Then there will be another election and some idiot will promise the most transparent administration in history again and we won’t even know what the word means anymore. Meanwhile, 2 million people have taken to the streets in Brazil, fed up with their corrupt government’s incompetence, sparked by an increase in bus fare.

Bus fair!

First Paula Deen, Now Ree Drummond??

In a shocking story that has rocked the Food Network world, popular television chef, Ree Drummond was notified this afternoon that her contract would not be renewed next month after evidence was unearthed that she had once used the word, “Indian giver” in a conversation with her sister in law 14 years ago. Native American groups were outraged, but not surprised by revelations of racism coming from a middle aged white woman from Oklahoma.

George “Golden Eagle” Begay, spokesman for NARF(Native American Rights Fund), said that although he watched The Pioneer Woman all the time and really did kind of like some of her recipes, deep down, he knew she was a racist. “The chances of finding a 45 year old Oklahoman who doesn’t hate Indians is about as rare as finding a Peace Treaty where the American government didn’t screw us over.”

Most observers thought that Drummond might be able to survive the discovery of this ugly Indian slur, if she had immediately apologized to the Indian community. But when her husband Ladd sent out said apology with smoke signals, the end was near. “I thought I was honoring their ancient communication system,” he tried to explain, “but from the looks of it, I made it worse.”

The Food Network has been rocked by scandal ever since the revelation just last week that headliner Paula Deen admitted to using the “n” word on numerous occasions. Industry experts are divided on whether the network can survive losing two of its biggest stars to such horrific allegations, especially if rumors that Giada De Laurentiis once told a joke about lazy Greeks back in college, turn out to be true.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

It is one of the undeniable facts of life that teenagers do stupid things. It is equally undeniable that the cult of celebrity has the power to transform otherwise normal people into freaks, Michael Jackson and Lindsey Lohan serving as the most obvious examples. Because I’m not famous, never will be and don’t know anyone who is, it’s very difficult for me to fathom what it must be like. What would my world be like if from the time I was ten years old, everyone constantly told me that I was great? If I had super human talent at acting, or music or athletics, I suppose that over time, I would develop an entourage of devoted, fawning sycophants, none of whom would ever say “no” to me. These sycophants along with my adoring fans would most likely create in me an enormous ego. Then, I suppose I would do something like this:

                                                                

When Mr. James was just a teenager, Sports Illustrated famously declared him the “Chosen One”, the natural heir to Michael Jordan. Heady stuff. But it’s one thing for a magazine to over-hype an athlete to sell copy, it’s another thing entirely to go out and immortalize the hype across your back…for all eternity.

Lebron James is an amazing basketball player. Whether or not he actually proves to be better than Michael Jordan remains to be seen, and Mr. James is certainly not the only great athlete with an ego. But, at this point I shudder to think of what might happen to this guy if he does. If you’re the kind of person who would tattoo yourself with “Chosen 1” before accomplishing anything as a professional athlete, what on earth might you be capable of when you do? Transcendent talent, Grand Canyon-sized ego, what could possibly go wrong?

NBA Finals MVP.....David Stern?

I have no credentials that can justify being a critic of NBA basketball. The last complete NBA game I sat down and watched probably featured Michael Jordon and Larry Bird. What I understand about today’s game comes from reading and watching highlights on Sports Center. But my number one source of information about the game comes from the hilarity that insues at 6 am on my Facebook feed after a playoff game, and I’m here to tell you, nothing is more entertaining than that.

I suppose I lost interest in the pro game when Magic and Bird and Jordon left and were replaced with Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, and Lebron James types, all terrific players but somehow irritating to me what with the tattoo-covered attitude, “we talkin’ ‘bout practice” of an Allen Iverson, to the pretentiousness of Lebron James calling himself “the king” before he had won anything. With Garnett it was always that angry swagger, the utterly unlikable personality, and with Nowitzki, well, I’ve never been big on imports ( insert eye-rolls and heavy sighing from everyone under 40 ).

Having said all of this, I have thoroughly enjoyed this year’s playoffs, even though I haven’t watched one second of one game. Here’s why. After each game, I don’t have to check ESPN.com for the score, all I have to do is head over to Facebook, sit back and watch the show! It goes something like this”

SPURS FAN: The worst freaking officiating EVER! David Stern wants Lebron to get that second ring. It’s FIXED!

HEAT FAN: Are you kidding me??? The only reason this wasn’t over in four games is because the refs are in the tank for the SPURS!! David Stern is a racist JEW!

SPURS FAN:  Stern got what he wants, a game seven. Wonder how much money he spends every year fixing these games?

HEAT FAN: Erik Spoelstra is on Stern’s payroll too, worst coach ever! Imagine how much greater Lebron would be if he had Phil Jackson!

 

Who is this David Stern, you may ask? What team does he play for? No, no, he isn’t a player; he’s a very rich white guy who apparently has super human powers of manipulation. He’s that rarest of creatures in sports, an aging rich white man of stunning genius who somehow pulls the strings of athletic competition in such a way as to force the Spurs to shoot 60% from the floor to insure his desired outcome. He is the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association, and as such processes powers that Barack Obama can only dream of. A mere phone call from this man can alter outcomes of games. His devious schemes make millions of dollars for his league by insuring the perfect outcomes for games that have been focus-grouped to within an inch of their lives. In so doing, he has become the reason for every team’s success or failure, if my Facebook feed is correct. The upcoming game seven will not be decided by the exploits of Lebron or Tim Duncan, no, no. It will all be the refs fault, and everyone knows that the refs are in David Stern’s back pocket. What a game!

Movie Review: Man of Steel

 I went to see Man of Steel last night. I have always been enamored with this story ever since I used to watch the old thirty minute black and white television series back when I was a kid, the one that ruined George Reeves’ life and led to his suicide at age 45. I loved the Christopher Reeve version, and was saddened at his death too. With that tract record, I hope nothing terrible befalls British actor, Henry Cavill, who does a fantastic job of filling out his spandex uniform but little else.

The movie was a disappointment for me on many levels, but as I was walking to my car in the parking lot afterwards, I was finding it difficult to put into words just why. My wife, as usual, came to the rescue with the best one sentence movie review of all time, “It had a whole lot of too much and not enough of something.” There’s no way I can improve on that, so I will just list in bullet points the things that irritated me.

# At 143 minutes, this movie once again illustrates that Hollywood has forgotten how to edit. Story could have been told just as well if not better in less than 2 hours …easily. The final fight scene between Superman and General Zod was so overcooked and ridiculous it bordered on comical. After destroying half of Metropolis wrestling through building after building, then, just for kicks, wrestling all the way into orbit onto a satellite, it finally occurs to Superman, that he can kill Zod by simply getting him in a choke hold and breaking his neck. Apparently Superman’s superhuman powers did not include the power of deductive reasoning.

# So, in the 2013 version of this story, Perry White turns out to be black.

# Lois Lane, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter famous for her inquiring mind, after being up close and personal with Superman in the most dangerous and emotionally powerful ways imaginable, hasn’t even the slightest hint of recognition when she is introduced to the newly hired Clark Kent at the end of the movie, a name she knew from her interview with his mother, and despite the fact that Clark’s only disguise was a pair of glasses.

# Although the story of Superman has always been heavy with religious imagery, Director Zack Snyder handles the religious themes with all the subtlety of a punch in the face. As Clark ponders what he is to do with his great powers, he wanders into a church, and as he explains his conundrum to a priest, behind his right shoulder is a huge stained glass depiction of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in the background. Nicely done Zack. I see what you did there!

Snyder’s approach seems to have been, “let’s spend as little time as possible telling the story, and as much time as possible blowing things up.” In other words, a whole lot of too much and not enough of something.